Zoemie watched the dream feeling almost resigned. A woman was staring at an old man, in what seemed to be a large, ravaged street, the cobbled stone broken and shattered in parts. The woman was very pale, with long white hair, more of a wraith, fluorescent yellow-orange mist wrapped around her, as if the very sunlight was her veil.

While Zoemie didn't know who she was, she did recognize the man as the old priest. "It is your fault,", the wraith-queen's said, turning to face the priest with a smile, a gruesome, threatening thing. "that my adored one is sleeping. That she was in such pain that she felt that endless sleep would be better !"

"I have done no wrong !", the priest defended himself. "It was the will of the gods to bring them here !", to which the wraith's threatening smile turned into a grin of demented rage. Bullshit, Zoemie thought.

"If your gods truly do wish for my adored one to sleep... then I shall reach into Heaven and scorch them to ashes !" answered the wraith-queen, almost screaming. "I will wake my adored one, and neither you nor your gods will stop me ! And then I will give her all the affection she deserves, forever !", she continued, her hair standing on end and the end of her clothing turning black and charred.

"You heartless monster !", screamed the priest. "How dare you def... Urgh !", he started, but was interrupted by a sphere of light impacting his hip, throwing him to the ground, his hands stopping his fall.

"If I do not have a heart, then tell me ! What it is within me that broke when my adored one fell asleep ! ANSWER ME !", was the wraith-queen's reply, before the the dream greyed out.

"may the sun's shadow turn you away from it

 

but do know of its existence

 

those who deny the dark fear hate resent it

 

they shall chase light until the edges of the world

to the end of their times for the rest of their lives

 

let not yourself be one of them"

---

Zoemie woke up suddenly from her nightmare, feeling like shit. She felt so drained she did not have the energy to get up for a while, simply staying in bed, her eyes closed as she calmed herself down. Fuck those nightmares, maan... she moaned internally.

She shook her head, bringing herself down from bed using her arms, her eyes crusted over by tiredness, and checked the time. "I slept for like, six hours, fuck." She shook her head, and went out of her room, unsure of what to do. It's way too early for breakfast.

Normally, she would just have tried to return to sleep, but she couldn't, she was too restless. So instead she wandered a bit around the dungeon, in a slight haze, Xajymzia quickly finding her way to her.

She had returned to her maid outfit this time, approaching Zoemie and starting to talk. "More nightmares ? You look very unwell, and it is not like you to be awake that early.", she asked, Zoemie nodding.

"...Yeah, I'm... just... so fucking tired.", Zoemie answered, half-yawningly. "Like, I'm worthless, yes, I know this already, everyone does ! No need to send me fucking awful nightmares to tell me that...", she rambled on, Xajymzia simply standing by.

"You clearly need to sleep, or at the very least rest.", Xajymzia interjected, Zoemie's yawn proving her more correct than anything Zoemie could have said. "And not work for today, either.", she continued, Zoemie blinking in exhaustion.

"But your thing never'll get done, rig...", Zoemie started to mumble as an answer, but Xajymzia interrupted her again.

"It can wait another day. Our timetable isn't so tight as for it to matter. Plus, with how tired you are, you're that much more likely to mess up at some point.", Xajymzia said, explaining her reasoning. "I personally do not care that much, mistakes like that can be easily fixed, but I know you have high standards about that and would beat yourself up for it."

Zoemie blinked again and teleported to her room, Xajymzia nodding in turn.

---

Xajymzia returned to her workshop, confirming her charge being asleep. The accelerated sleep blanket seemed to work well enough, although it had to be handled carefully, as it may have currently-unknown-of potentially deleterious consequences.

Still, it was here by far the lesser evil. Her charge was fluctuating in mood at the best of times, so sleep deprivation was definitely not something she wanted to have added to the already unstable mix.

She shook her head, and refocused her attention to the prototype. It was surprisingly hefty, bigger than Xajymzia would have liked, but it wasn't heavy, and in fact was oddly light. It was a pale grey tablet, with a white "screen" and a red button underneath it for the emergency warning.

Xajymzia typed in a message, her fingers dancing on the touchscreen, and pressed the "send" button. Message received. Success. She then pressed the emergency button. Excellent. Working as planned.

Xajymzia nodded in satisfaction. It seemed functional, for now. Of course, it would require further testing, but at the very least it that was one item down the list. Her attention was drawn by movement in the dungeon grounds, but a quick check showed it to be a mere monster. Nothing worth her attention.

The magical particles contained by the very air of the dungeon had a mildly repulsive effect on monsters that are not part and parcel of it. The deeper in the dungeon, the stronger the effect. An ability that all dungeons have, even if Xajymzia had never been much of a beastmaster, even when she was the Warden.

Although that had more to do with her failing to prepare any form of defences that a particular dislike towards using monsters. It was a thing she could do, still, but she could tell Zoemie would not like it very much, and Xajymzia could easily intuit why.

Instead, Xajymzia weighed pros and cons between working on the portal and the scanner, and she decided on the latter, teleporting to the scanner room, looking at the device. It was time to figure out how this thing worked. The portal would take much longer to figure out, while this would come online earlier.

However, one of her inner alarms rang, and she looked at Zoemie, frowning and quickly confirming things.

---

Zoemie tried to swear openly as she realized she was dreaming again, but her mouth couldn't move. Gooood, WHY ? She appeared to be floating above a city. Maybe. It was hard to say, as a thick, pale yellow-green fog covered most of the ground level.

There was a shattering noise, as what appeared to be some form of projectile hit the ground. What is that ? Some kind of... glass shell ? It was filled with the same fog, and as Zoemie started looking above, she saw it.

Gas-filled shells were falling like raindrops on the city, more than two hundreds projectiles hitting the ground every minute. Death from above in every sense of the term. It looked straight out of the WW1 section of Zoemie's history books.

Her attention was drawn again by an aura, a feeling to the side. She saw people ran away from the fog, a man looking to be swallowed by it, his legs giving out as his child screamed for him. What the fuck am I looking at ?, Zoemie asked herself internally. Just a dream. Just a fucking dream. This guy and his family are fine.

She turned her eyes to the aura. A dark fog emanated from... something, and in front of them was a carriage. It was richly decorated, and a golden seal was present on the side. A girl Zoemie had seen before was sitting, her hands on the ground and trying to get away from the fog. Two dark blue lights gleamed from the fog. The girl stopped, wetting herself as unnatural fear gripped her utterly.

The dream greyed out, and the voice started talking again.

"we fear those with nothing to lose

unmatched wrath fury grudge

 

steps that stop fail

trip and fall if you must

 

but let not grudges or sorrow take over all

stay the hard way the long winding road"

---

Zoemie woke up again feeling mostly still like shit, and utterly parched to boot. After solving the first problem with a quick teleport to the bathroom, she returned to her room and lied in bed. She turned and tossed a bit, before going to eat breakfast after getting a few hunger pangs.

She couldn't focus at all, and while she was dubious eating would help, it at the very least couldn't hurt. She ate her breakfast as usual, more shoveling it down her gullet than truly enjoying the taste, and frankly she felt a little sick.

After finishing her breakfast and subsequent routine, Zoemie returned to bed, still feeling cruddy and gross. At least I'm not hungry anymore, but I still just feel like crap. She opened her computer, trying and failing to focus and play.

Uuuurgh... It feels so fucking unpleasant, like I'm stiff from the sheer amount of filth. Zoemie grumbled. She was tired but jumpy, turning and tossing around in her bed a lot more, unable to gather the energy to get up and clean herself.

Her tossing around was interrupted by a knock on the door, Xajymzia's head peeking through the door. Zoemie felt a pang of anxiety that she quickly and harshly suppressed. "I would have asked if everything is alright, but the answer to that question seems rather blatant.", she said, Zoemie grumbling and taking deep breaths.

"I feel like shit. I am so fucking tired of... all of this !", Zoemie answered, half-ranting at the end. "What's wrong with me ? Why am I such a fucking failure ! It should be illegal to be that fucking incompetent !"

Xajymzia quickly threw out a bunch of spells to prevent Zoemie from breaking anything, which would only make her feel even worse, while the girl raved and ranted. "That's why they hated me, right !"

"They hate me all so fucking much ! They'll throw a fucking party at my funeral, and it'll be so fucking massive Hitler's death wasn't that celebrated !", she continued to ramble, Xajymzia having slightly withdrawn herself from the outburst. "How do they do it, dammit ? I mean, I know it, they never fuck up ! So what is the thing that I am missing ? Dammit !"

Xajymzia calculated rapidly within her mind how to solve the situation, and settles on a simple approach. There was a noise, Xajymzia hacking within the computer to remotely launch the currently best game to distract Zoemie with. "That... isn't going to help, dammit !"

"No," Xajymzia started, putting just enough force in her voice to prevent Zoemie from trying to shout her down, her head back through the door " but hasty, rash, ill-thought out plans are not likely to succeed and that will only make you feel worse."

Zoemie blinked twice, and emitted a long, slow grumble of utterly exhausted defeat, seemingly unsure of what to answer to that. She, after a bit, picked up her mouse and starting to play. "Fine, I guess.".

"Do take the time to shower or bath when you feel calmer.", Xajymzia said. "I know you don't like to do that too late normally, but ignore it for today. One of these nightmares is rough already, so give yourself a break.", she continued, satisfied at Zoemie's nod of answer.

---

Zoemie walked down the corridor, feeling slightly less bad after her gaming session let the worst of her emotions dissipate, and taking her bath as well. I do feel less... cruddy, I guess ?, she ackowledged, before shaking her head.

"Fuck. That sucked.", she grumbled, annoyed. What now ? She didn't like to admit it, but Xajymzia seemed to be right. Simply rushing ahead out of displeasure isn't going to be effective, huh ? On the other hand, it's how I arrived here.

She sighed, her attention drawn by Xajymzia's footsteps. She turned to face the maid, who nodded at her. There was a short lull, while Zoemie gathered her courage. "...Sorry.", she said, the maid raising an eyebrow. "For blowing up at you like that."

"Don't feel the need for it. I was frankly more worried about you hurting yourself than anything else.", Xajymzia deflected, before continuing. "Considering the circumstances, it's not very surprising you'd have some form of outburst. Instead, why don't you return to playing ? It's probably the sanest thing for you to do right now."

Zoemie grumbled internally. She really meant it, when she said that. Zoemie didn't know how she felt about it. There was a part of her that felt angry, for some reason. It's like she's denying my worthlessness, like she can't look at it in the face. At the same time, she couldn't deny that this clearly didn't come from bad intentions.

Xajymzia broke the silence again, surprising Zoemie out of her reverie. "I... understand you may find it unpleasant, but I do sincerely believe that the best thing for you to right now is take a break and play your games. Tomorrow will be another, possibly better day.", she explained.

Maaybe she's right, Zoemie considered, before nodding. She ain't gonna budge, huh ? Alright, then. She had a pretty good idea of what she was going to play, to boot, and as such she teleported to her bedroom.

---

Xajymzia considered. She'd have to pull out something special for Zoemie tonight in terms of food. Considering the day she had, she deserved it. She would have to figure out something to prevent these types of outbursts happening again.

She cursed her lack of tools to handle the nightmares, analyzing and calculating various options she either hadn't considered, going over everything and ensuring she hadn't missed or overlooked something, anything to make things easier for Zoemie.

...Really not many options. Xajymzia shook her head. She would have to hope the nightmares stopped, or at the very least lowered in frequency, it seemed. Not a solution that pleaser her, her lack of agency getting on her nerves. She refocused.

She turned again to the scanner device. She had gotten off-track, but since things had calmed down a little she could return to it. The idea was simple in theory, but the practice was going to take some thinking and tinkering to figure out.

She conjured a second scanner device, to make sure she had one laying around it case things went horribly wrong. Although it wasn't that much of a factor, since she possessed a database of items she could conjure, better safe than sorry.

Xajymzia had two goals with this reseach : not only to add a large-scale scanner to get an idea on trespassers, but also personal scanning in specially-made new eyes that would be added in the fusion for those, for out-of-dungeon combat situations, an idea that came to her in a "aha" moment.

She looked at the scanner, mentally clarifying her goals. Make it faster, increase area of scanning, understand how it works so I can copy and upgrade its functioning. She would need to use it to do that, ans while she could use Zoemie's assistance... she had other options.

Xajymzia teleported to the storage room, looking at the bandit's equipments, which looked just the same as it did when it was first looted. Xajymzia started using the remaning mana signatures on the weapon, looking in details at how the mana ran within the machine's circuitry as it scanned the deceased men.

---

Zoemie left her room feeling almost OK, her stomach having once again forced her out of her den. The smell made Zoemie's mouth water. She didn't know what it was, but man it smelled good. She walked towards the dining room, the smell getting stronger.

"Huh, pizza." Zoemie had never been much of a pizza person. But as she sat down, picking up her cutlery, she did look forward to eating it. Everything in this place had been tasty so far, after all. No reason for it to change.

As Zoemie started to eat, she quickly realized the origin of her ambivalence. Never had pizza with stuff on it I actually like ! This is really good !

After consuming the entire pizza, with creme sauce and smoked salmon-mozza toppings, she finished her post-dinner routine with her mood being almost decent. She decided to try to teleport to the lab and do a bit of work, but found the door closed, with a paper taped on it.

I said "no work today".

>:(

"...Well then", said Zoemie after recovering for her short bout of laughter, returning to her bedroom amused, and deciding to play some more.